If we’re looking at Joseph Campbell’s teachings, he talks often about the hero’s call. That moment in which, despite whatever doubt the main character has, they make the decision to embrace their fate and transform, or begin their transformation, into a hero. For Lucy Webber (a.k.a. Black Hammer), that calling has come on multiple occasions, because Jeff Lemire continues to reset reality around our team of Golden Age Spiral City superheroes.

In the latest episode of American Gods, New Media has emerged from her digital chrysalis. She shed her pop culture icon identity and now speaks in emojis. Media and how we consume it has changed in the time since the book of American Gods was released, so it makes sense that the character would evolve to reflect the times.

DINOSAURS! Sold! However, I’m not gonna lie, the dino-nut in me was mildly apprehensive about how good this could possibly be. For one, the mish-mash of the different periods of the Mesozoic era in the Jurassic Park series has always bugged me, and, for another, I’m a huge fan of Ricardo Delgado’s Age of Reptiles series which seemed like a high bar to clear. Good news, fellow dinosaur aficionados, Tadd Galusha’s Cretaceous doesn’t include any dinosaurs from before 145 million years ago, AND they’re all actually found on the island continent of Laramidia (back when North America was split in two by the Western Interior Seaway). Score one for accuracy!

House of Penance by Peter J. Tomasi is an experience in horror through the eyes of guilt and remorse. It’s a study into the aspect of regret and being haunted by the actions you take. It’s a look through the eyes of a woman who is doing what she can to atone for the bloody legacy of the Winchester rifle.

I still remember reading The Handmaid's Tale novel by Ms. Atwood when I was a teenager. It was a horrifying look at a future that, at that time, I felt was little more than a fantasy. Too young to understand the implications of a government based on theonomy (a hypothetical Christian form of government in which society is ruled by divine law), it resonates even more so today as we now face religious extremism in our daily lives. (I made my mother read it back then, and I’m not sure she appreciated it.)

The first time I read Matt Kindt’s Mind MGMT was the first time I had read Matt Kindt's work. It wasn’t the first time I had my mind wrecked, but it did a pretty good job of wrecking my mind again like it was the first time. Reading through what is now the first Omnibus, a collection of the first two volumes, I’m riveted by how perfect every movement is from Kindt. It’s difficult to compare it to anything else in the comic book world, so, if this were a musical composition, it would be "Rhapsody in Blue," something in which every note is perfect, inspired, emotional, thoughtful, beautiful, and profound. Mind MGMT is breathless perfection.

I am a bit behind on my American Gods reviews, so I am going to combine my reviews of the first (“House on the Rock”) and second (“The Beguiling Man”) episodes of Season 2, as well as celebrate that the show has already been renewed for a third season!

Beasts of Burden is one of those worlds that I’m absolutely happy to have exist. Dogs that are witches for anyone else would sound like someone was grasping at straws for an idea, but Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson’s creation is really quite fantastic. In their hands, dogs just seem like the type of animal that would use magic to help the world. I mean, duh.

“Love Town is a city built upon a foundation of corruption, violence, and greed, where millionaire celebrities rub shoulders with ruthless gangsters and scheming politicians, where the figurative magic of the silver screen competes with the literal magic of the streets.

Magic is the siren’s song that lures so many in Love Town to their doom…”

Last month, we closed out the first arc of BOOM! Studios’ relaunch of the Firefly series with a serious cliffhanger. Instead of steering us straight into some new, intergalactic shenanigans this month, BOOM! is launching its Firefly: Bad Company line, and its first issue focuses on our dear Mrs. Reynolds, “Saffron.” The issue explores Saffron’s mysterious past, and coming in at 40 whole pages, it feels pretty well paced and organic in its storytelling.